Since ancient times, artists, architects, artisans and other designers have been aware of the aesthetic value of utilizing a series of geometric shapes whose areas are related to each other in accordance with some definite geometric formula. One well known example of the application of this principle is its use in Islamic architecture in the design of various decorative features in a mosque or other structure.
Despite the centuries-old recognition of this aesthetic principle, it appears that the applicability of the principle to a design game has never been recognized. Thus no one, so far as applicant is aware, has ever suggested the desirability or even the possibility of a game that utilizes a plurality of series of pieces or modules in a predetermined total number, with each series containing the same plurality of pieces, all of the pieces having the same predetermined shape, and the size of the pieces in each series progressing in the same way as in every other series, from the smallest of the series to the largest, according to a definite geometric formula.
One prior patent (Adams U.S. Pat. No. 3,698,122) discloses a set of children's playing blocks for making various designs, with the size of the blocks progressing according to a well known geometric formula, but that invention is limited to a single series of blocks and the patent wholly fails to suggest the possibility of employing a plurality of such series to facilitate the production of a wide variety of abstract or quasi-representational designs. The reason for this omission is apparent from the limited educational purpose of the set of blocks disclosed in the patent, which is to illustrate graphically that there are in nature many examples of a nonlinear progression in the size of a series of objects, such as the petals of a daisy, the scales of a pine cone, or the bumps on a pineapple.
For this limited educational purpose, it is not only unnecessary to provide more than a single series of precisely sized blocks, it would in fact defeat the lesson the blocks are designed to demonstrate to an infant or child of tender years if the situation were made more complicated by having two or more blocks of the same size. Thus the Adams invention is inherently restricted to a single series of blocks and necessarily excludes a plurality of series of blocks, which feature is essential to applicant's invention.